Tuesday, 24 July 2012

Sick and tired ...

Another semester draws to a close. I haven't blogged much this semester because I have been too busy, and now I am too tired. I think Japan is tired too. Sick and tired of TEPCO for a start. One of my colleagues joins the regular Friday evening protests against the restarting of the nuclear reactors. These are rarely reported in the Japanese news and even when they are, she says, police and newspapers are under-reporting the number of protestors. Last Friday she was headed over to PM Noda's district. I later heard that 170,000 protesters turned out for that one. The problem is that the government is supported - some say run - by big business so it will ignore the wishes of the people. Big business also runs the newspapers.

I am also tired because I spent five hours at the Immigration Centre yesterday trying to get my working visa renewed. This meant that I also had to get the new Resident's card which has replaced the Foreigner's gaijin card. I arrived at 10am, got to the front of the queue at 11am where I submitted my passport and old gaijin card and then waited a further 5 hours for something to happen. So did about 800 other people. There were 100 seats. I sat for 3 hours and stood for 2. The screen said the estimated waiting time was 1,876 minutes. It also said, "The direction of the following numbers comes Counter of No. 4".

I enjoyed watching the other foreigners acting according to their cultural traits. The Chinese attempted to queue-jump, the Filipinos constantly shouted to each other across the room, shouted down their phones to their friends and possibly shouted to their relatives back home in the Philippines, the Indians sat quietly playing with their children, and a German woman loudly harangued her Japanese husband who put his earphones in and refused to answer back. The Brazilians sat in couples with their arms around each other. Several of the foreigners were obviously working girls with their Japanese pimps (flashy suits and sunglasses indoors). The Brits read books.

One person, apparently a man, wore a hat with a large towel hanging down underneath, a face mask, sunglasses, a neck cover, a track suit and white gloves. You couldn't see an inch of his skin. It was very suspicious (and rather worrying in light of the recent Dark Knight shooting) but none of the officials took any notice. How he got his Resident's card when he could not be seen, I don't know. But I come from a suspicious culture. Here, I often see motorcyclists withdrawing money from banks without taking their helmets off and no-one bothers.

The Immigration Centre is a bus ride away from Shinagawa station. It's right on the docks so that anyone who isn't granted a visa, can be put on the next boat out. Allegedly. At the bus stop back to Shinagawa, Falun Gong were trying to recruit the Chinese.

Anyway, 5 hours of waiting gave me time to catch up on my reading. I have been enjoying the TEPCO report because it is so true. It is true not just for the Fukushima disaster but for the entire Japanese nation. Anyone who wants to understand the Japanese people should read this document.

The report was written by Kiyoshi Kurokawa, professor emeritius at Tokyo University. He says that the disaster was the result of a "multitude of errors and wilful negligence" by the government, safety officials and TEPCO. (TEPCO who are going to put our electricity bills up by 8% from the autumn).

He writes,

"Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to 'sticking with the programme'; our groupism; and our insularity. What must be admitted - very painfully - is that this was a disaster 'Made in Japan'."

"We believe that the root causes were the organisational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions, rather than issues relating to the competency of any specific individual. ... Across the board, the commission found ignorance and arrogance unforgivable for anyone or any organisation that deals with nuclear power. We found disregard for global trends and a disregard for public safety".

You can apply all that to pretty much any Japanese organisation. However, I would like to point out that it is those same cultural traits that got major roads repaired within the week. Whatever occurs, Japanese keep doing what they always do. They keep on getting up and going to work and staying late to get sometimes pointless jobs done because they have been told to do it from further up the chain of command. Which reminds me, I must write about the "Paperless Inkai". Until tomorrow ...